(RNS) — When John Cooper, the frontman of Christian rock band Skillet, first saw that some called the band’s new cover of the Christian hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” “demonic,” he thought it was a joke.
“Truthfully, we haven’t had any pushback like that, probably in 20 years,” Cooper told Religion News Service. “I don’t remember the last time anybody said Skillet was satanic.”
Though some conservative Christians condemned the rock group’s edgy, grunge sound when they first debuted in the 1990s, these days, Cooper’s critics are more likely to come from the left. Skillet is known for appealing to both secular and Christian audiences, but that doesn’t hinder Cooper from sharing that he views abortion as “pure evil” and “baby murder” and opposes “the transgender theory being taught in schools.” In 2023, he detailed his convictions in a book called “Wimpy, Weak, and Woke,” which describes Marxism, postmodernism, social justice and critical race theory as “prevailing lies that are destroying America.”
This month, though, it wasn’t progressives taking Cooper to task — it was a handful of fellow conservative Christians.
“The problem with Skillet is that he uses demonic rhythms to praise God, period,” one Baptist pastor wrote on X in response to the band’s cover of the ancient Advent hymn. “American Christianity’s embrace of rock (and its various cousins) is a spiritual travesty.”
An end-times Christian account also chimed in: “If the Devil sang hymns, and sometimes he does, this is what it would sound and look like.” …